I still have to get Best of H.P. Lovecraft : Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre back from a friend. Some great stuff in it! Nothing like reading a Lovecraft story in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm while listening to Ozzy's older stuff.... nice and creepy!

I couldn`t get enough Lovecraft when I was young, although his works don`t age well. He is, however, one of the most important influences on horror writing of the 20th century, and as such all respect to the man.

H.P. Lovecraft is probably the horror author who's works I have read the most. I became interested because my brothers used to play a "Call of Cthulu" roll playing game! I watched them play one time and I thought I might like to read "The Call of Cthulu" . So I did!

Anyway, I also really liked "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath". I think my favorite story is "The Dunwich Horror".

H.P. Lovecraft is one of the reasons that my BF and I had such a great first date and are still together 2 years later. A lot of scotch drinking helped, too!

For me the most memorable ones were "The Call of Cthulhu" (of course!) and "The Colour out of Space", which is one of the creepiest stories ever. I know HPL was terrible at dialogue and characterization, but he still should be recommended reading for anyone interested in the horror genre.

I believe Del Rey has been reprinting anthologies of his short stories, including a "Best of..." collection. Lovecraft wrote both Mythos and non-Mythos horror stories, but it is the Mythos stories, which are thematically linked but can be read independently of one another, for which he's best known. The better known Mythos stories include "The Dunwich Horror", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Whisperer in Darkness" and (what many consider his best story) "The Shadow out of Time". Those stories, together with "The Color out of Space", which folks argue as to whether it is Mythos-related or not, should be included in any Lovecraft anthology worth reading.

At the Mountains of Madness scared the bejezus out of me. Totally sucked in and believing while reading, that's rare for me. Heck, I believed the Necronomicon existed, and I even called bookstores looking for a copy. I didn't want to call up the Old Ones -- I just wanted to see it.

The Dunwich Horror is a favorite too.

Haven't tried to read him for a long time though, and after 20 or 30 years of reading modern stuff, I don't know that I'd appreciate it as much as when I was a kid.

Arkham House did a good collection called Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos which was prerinted recently by Del Rey in paperback.

I believe Del Rey has also reprinted the Arkham House collection Cthulhu 2000, which contains more recent stories and is also good.

Golden Gryphon has a hardcover collection called Eternal Lovecraft which is woth reading. Makes sense, as it was edited by the late Jim Turner, who moved from editing Arkham House to Golden Gryphon and while he was at AH did the collections I mention above.

The king of Mythos stories publishers is Chaosium, for which editor Robert Price has done a number of paperbacks with titles like "The Cthulhu Cycle, "The Hastur Cycle", "The Innsmouth Cycle", etc. A mixed bag, some good stories, some no more than fan fiction.

Robert Price also edited for Fedogan & Bremer three hardcover anthologies, The Lovecraft Circle (early mythos stories), The New Lovecraft Circle (later mythos stories) and the new Acolytes of Cthulhu. F&B also have an anthology of Innsmouth based stories.

One suggestion: avoid any of Derleth's stories. He was a much better editor than author.